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Nursing Home Abuse in Indiana

If you, or someone you know, is the victim of nursing home abuse or elder abuse, it's important to address the issue immediately. Report the abuse to Indiana law enforcement authorities and hire an Indiana nursing home abuse attorney.

Recognizing Elder Abuse & Nursing Home Abuse

"There are many kinds of elder abuse. Physical abuse includes any kind of physical battery, such as slapping, pushing, kicking, punching, or injuring with an object or weapon. It also includes deliberate exposure to severe weather, inappropriate use of medication and unnecessary physical restraint. Sexual abuse includes any forced sexual activity. All are crimes under Indiana law.

"Elder Abuse also includes mental cruelty and psychological abuse. If someone humiliates, insults, frightens, threatens, ignores or treats an older person like a child, this is mental cruelty. Threatening to put an older person in a nursing home can be a form of psychological abuse. Removal of decision making power when the elderly person is still competent to make his/her own decisions is also considered to be psychological abuse. Under some circumstances, psychological abuse and other forms of mental cruelty are crimes under Indiana law."

Elder abuse can come in other forms, too. For example, neglect and financial exploitation are also considered to be elder abuse.

Like elder abuse, nursing abuse comes in many forms, including physical abuse, verbal abuse and sexual abuse. Nursing home abuse specifically refers to abuse that occurs in short-term and long-term assisted living facilities, with victims who may be vulnerable adults and seniors. Learn more about what to do if you suspect patient abuse or neglect.

How Can an Indiana Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Help You?

Indiana nursing home abuse attorneys can offer several types of assistance if you or a loved one is an abuse victim.

The attorney can help bring the known or suspected abuse to the attention of law enforcement authorities. Your lawyer can guide you through the process of reporting abuse, accompany the victim to interviews with police and prosecutors, and put pressure on law enforcement to pursue the case and press criminal charges.

Law enforcement may charge the abuser with a crime. The abuser may plead guilty or go to trial. If found guilty, the abuser will face jail time, probation and fines. However, it's important to understand that fines are paid to the government—not the abuse victim.

Regardless of whether the government presses criminal charges against the abuser, a nursing home abuse victim can file a civil lawsuit against the abuser. Because it can be easier to win a civil lawsuit, you'll want to consider a civil suit even if the abuser is found not guilty of the criminal abuse charges.

Civil lawsuits allow Indiana elder abuse victims to collect damages, or money, from the abuser. Damages can compensate an Indiana nursing home victim for any medical expenses incurred as a result of the abuse, as well as the repair or replacement of damaged property, such as clothing and furniture. Some damages—known as punitive damages—are intended to punish the abuser for his or her actions.

Indiana elder abuse lawyers can guide victims through the process of filing civil lawsuits against their abusers.

Find & Hire Indiana Nursing Home Abuse Attorneys

If you need to hire an Indiana elder abuse lawyer, you must act quickly—time is of the essence. And Attorneys.com offers a service that can connect you with a nursing home abuse attorney in your area—often within one or two business days.

To use our service, complete the form on this page or call us at 877-913-7222. After asking you a few simple questions, we'll match you with an attorney in your area. Our service is fast and it's free, so act now.